Pope Francis to hold meeting with top Shiite cleric in Iraq

VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis, on a historic trip to Iraq, will on Saturday hold a hugely symbolic meeting with Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, seeking to deepen his cautious dialogue with Muslim leaders.

The 84-year-old pope will visit the top Shiite cleric at his home in Najaf, the shrine city where Imam Ali, the fourth Islamic caliph and relative of the Prophet Mohammed, is buried.

Sistani, 90, is never seen in public and rarely accepts visitors, but the Argentine pontiff, always happiest among the faithful, favours direct encounters.

Francis has long hailed the power of inter-religious dialogue, symbols of peace and tolerance, without dwelling on the theological subtleties advanced by his predecessor.

Benedict XVI, who resigned as pope eight years ago, provoked years of cool relations with the Muslim world when in 2006 he quoted criticisms of the Prophet Mohammed by a 14thcentury Byzantine Christian emperor.

Two years ago in Abu Dhabi, Francis and leading Sunni cleric Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, the grand imam of Al-Azhar, signed a document on “human fraternity for world peace”.

They made a joint call for freedom of belief, although what stands out from that trip – the first by a pope to the Arabian Peninsula – was the image of the leader of the world’s 1.3 million Catholics embracing a Sunni imam.

Sunnis account for almost 90 percent of the world’s Muslims, Shiites 10 per cent – the majority in Iran and Iraq.

In Iraq, the population is 60 per cent Shiite and 37 per cent Sunni.

— AFP photo A giant billboard bears portraits of Francis and Sistani in Baghdad ahead of the first-ever papal visit to Iraq, aiming to encourage the dwindling Christian community to remain in their ancient homeland, and broaden his outreach to Islam.